Category: Song of the Week

With a candle in my hand and squeezed onto a picnic blanket full of friends, I’ll soon be spending another August weekend at the Edmonton Folk Festival. Tickets sold out in an hour on Friday morning, and I’m pretty pleased to have a pair. One of the acts I’m most looking forward to this year is Bahamas, the stage name of Toronto guitarist and singer Afie Jurvanen. Once a regular supporting player for Feist, his second solo album Barchords was released in February, much anticipated after his Polaris Prize nominated debut.

As Bahamas, he has created fascinating mix of breezy light songs that pulse with an undercurrent of melancholy. They seem almost forgettable at first and then grab hold of something and don’t let go. Part of the appeal is his rich soft voice. There’s also his attention to detail in how every plucked string sounds, often using vintage guitars from the 50s and 60s to get just the right tone. This week’s song, though, is even more clever than that. Continue reading “Bahamas’s Caught Me Thinking and the Shepard Tone”

Walking down an unfamiliar street last week, I turned a corner and saw a sign announcing in a 70s art deco font on a rich burnt orange background: LAUNDERETTE.  Squinting against the midday sun, I smiled and thought of this great song from Belle and Sebastians’ 2006 The Life Pursuit. Catchy country-rock hooks bring you in and subtle changes in each repeat of the chorus keep you there. There’s even a great sustained organ chord at the beginning that lends a momentary but endearing Hall and Oates vibe, not unlike the sign at my particular launderette. (This is not even to mention to video, which I love.) Needless to say, walking the rest of the way down the street humming this gem was no hardship. Continue reading “Earworms generally, and mine in particular, ft. Belle and Sebastian’s “Blues Are Still Blue””

MC Shanahan is on tour today. So, y’all get stuck with me. In what may be a repressed hope that you will follow the back links to my stand-up comedy set at Bright Club Cambridge. Kind of sad, eh?

Bright Club featured the comedy musical stylings of Rosalind Peters, and we were featuring what was undoubtedly the nerdiest song of the night, “The Philosophy Song”. I’m pretty sure the lyrics were composed after Ros asked, “What rhymes with Spinoza?”

Early Christmas morning 1985, I quietly crept out bed. There was something that I really wanted, and I had to see if it was there. Tip-toeing down the long hallway, careful to avoid the floorboards that I knew would creak, I held my breath. Continue reading “Moms are awesome, both in science and in song”

Like lots of people my age, I spent the weekend listening to the Beastie Boys: considering the huge impact they’ve had on music, remembering them as the soundtrack for much of my youth, and thinking with sadness and regret that it won’t be the same after Adam Yauch’s death on Friday. Continue reading “Remembering with the Beastie Boys’ “Pow””